


For I have sinned

by Runespoor



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Daddy Issues, Identity Issues, M/M, Other Issues, Red Hood - Freeform, communication: highly overrated, they have issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emotionally fraught conversations only happen, like love, when Bruce falls into them, unavoidably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For I have sinned

Red Hood's tinny laugh rings in his ear, courtesy of the earpiece Jason made sure to leave behind. "Oh, Bruce. You never just drop it, do you?"

"What would you have me do," he says. It's Jason's voice, with only a few years added to it, and Jason's tone, only a bit better at faking casualness; it's Jason, only a bit more cruel, and Bruce cannot find it in himself to put the earpiece down, stay silent, refuse to play Jason's game. Always a game.

"I know you better than anyone, Bruce," Jason whispers. Bruce's breath catches on the end of the sentence, cut off like a kiss.

"Come back," he says, helpless, because it's the first time since Jason had a gun to Joker's temple and dared or pleaded Bruce to put him down that Jason showed him the first sign that Bruce can still reach him. 

“Stop pretending!” Sudden anger, now, as sudden as the storms of August in Gotham. Bruce remembers he used to watch Jason rage, burning like ambers, his mind blank of ways to make him stop, make it stop, the pain. When he’d put his hand on Jason’s shoulder, he might be rewarded with a snarl, or with Jason’s eyes clearing in a smile. But Red Hood is on the other side of town and all Bruce has is his voice to answer Jason, and he was never good at talking Jason down.

His heart is beating louder than his training should permit. “You know I’m not.” It’s not a lie, even though he’s _pretending_ to be calm.

The earpiece isn’t good enough to pick up precisely the quality of laughter. Pain or mockery, it’s all busied with static, leaving Bruce to flounder in the dark. Maybe Red Hood chose it on purpose. “Oh, you’re fooling yourself alright. Still think you’re doing this for the good of Gotham, Bruce? The Mission, your parents, innocent victims of crime? Newsflash: you’re doing this because it feels good.”

“Jason—“ He doesn’t know what he could say, doesn’t know what he wants to say. But he has to stop the bleeding spiral in Jason’s voice, try to derail it. _Come home_ isn’t ever the right words. Even if he says _so you can hit me in the face_. That wouldn’t hurt as much, and Jason’s always known that.

“Yeah, that’s right. You try to make it about them, about family, but we’re not family, Bruce, we’ve never been. Even when you adopted me we weren’t. I was fourteen and you _wanted_ me, what kind of family is that?” 

This time even the second-rate gear lets through the laugh is broken, raw. Batman stumbles and has to put a hand against the wall of the tunnel to prevent from falling.

“Jay—“ he breathes, hopeless for words. “I never wanted—I never meant to hurt you, I never—“

“No, fuck you, you’re going to listen. I knew that, and I wanted it, and I don’t-- resent you for wanting me. I’m mad because when I tried, you didn’t. You pretended I was your _son_ like you could make it go away.”

A huff on the other side. Bruce’s hands, he’s surprised to realise, are clenched into fists in Batman’s gloves.

“So. Here’s the thing. You were never my father, Bruce. I fucking _absolve_ you.”

_Then why won’t you let me do the same for you._ Any question would be safer to ask. “Is that why you call me Dad?” Dry. As his lips.

“That’s just the game,” Jason informs him. He sounds just like he did when he was thirteen. There’s a pause, which is unusual for the way neither of them tries to fill it, and then Jason says, “you’re almost there.”

“The end of the tunnel,” Bruce grimaces. The protests his ribs are emitting about the sport he’s pulling them through have finally started to register, now the adrenaline’s come down.

Jason chuckles. “I’d wish you good luck for the next step, but all in all I’d rather win, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s not a _game_ ,” Bruce grumbles between his teeth.

“So you keep saying, but you know, I’m thinking that’s another thing where you’re pretending,” Jason retorts. “Catch me if you can, old man.”

The comm goes dead, and Bruce bites down on his pain. Each step brings him closer to the exit.


End file.
